“Thou say’st thy will is good, and glory’st in it, And yet forget’st thy Maker ev’ry minute: Say, Portio, was there ever Will allow’d When the testator’s mem’ry was not good?” Quarles.

It was said that such expressions of religious faith as those of Dr. Johnson and his namesake were still frequent in the eighteenth century, and still to some extent formal. There is an interesting commentary on this in the will of the Rev. Philip Doddridge, D.D., the famous writer and divine. His will is dated June 11, 1741, and was proved with a codicil on the 31st of December, 1751. “Whereas it is customary on these occasions to begin with recommending the soul into the hands of God thro’ Christ, I do it not in mere form but with sincerity and joy, esteeming it my greatest happiness that I am taught and encouraged to do it by that glorious Gospel, which having most assuredly believed I have spent my life in preaching to others, and esteem an infinitely [Pg 114] greater treasure than all my little worldly store, or possessions ten thousand times greater than mine.”

In his will dated 13th of May, 1751, and proved in December the same year, another divine, the Rev. Obadiah Hughes, D.D., recommends his soul to God in a peculiarly touching dedication. We cannot but believe in its sincerity and strength. “In the name of God, Amen. I Obadiah Hughes, of Aldermanbury, London, Minister of the Gospel and Doctor in Divinity, (being sensible of the frailty and uncertainty of life, and reckoning it a duty of very great importance incumbent upon every man to set his house in order, as well as his heart, before he dies,) do make this my last will and testament in manner following. I recommend my soul into the hands of God, to whom I am humbly bold thro’ Jesus Christ to claim a relation as my God and my Father; and though conscious to myself of great unworthiness, yet I hope to be accepted in the beloved Son of God, and for His sake to obtain mercy and pardon and life eternal. This Jesus I have endeavoured to serve in the Gospel, with great sincerity, I trust, tho’ with many infirmities and too much remissness; with Him I have long ago lodged my everlasting concerns, and I do now most solemnly in the views and expectation of another world declare that I receive Christ Jesus by faith as my Lord, and repose an unshaken confidence in Him as my all-sufficient Saviour; and [Pg 115] according to the constitution of the Covenant of Grace, as a penitent returning believing sinner, I hope for Christ’s sake to be made a partaker of an inheritance with the Saints in light, at that awful season when my soul and body shall by death be parted. And in those regions of immortal bliss I hope with inconceivable joy to meet the departed spirit of my late most dearly beloved wife, which I doubt not has safely reached its heavenly home upon its dislodgment from the body—Lord Jesus Christ, let not this hope leave me ashamed, nor my soul finally miscarry.”

Truly in wills we are delighted with intimacies that elsewhere are seldom seen. Here, again, is a familiar touch in one of Dean Cheyney’s many codicils, already quoted in part: “Hond. Madam, As I have by will given the greatest part of my estate entirely unto your disposal (being desirous you should enjoy it and be made as happy as possible whilst in this world), I make no doubt but, if you survive me, you will as well out of regard to justice as my request, immediately after my death make a will, and therein take effectual care of what I here recommend to you.... This I have writ in haste to supply the defects of my will now made, in case I die before I make a new one; which I intend in a few months when my affairs will be better settled, if it please God to spare me so long. I have nothing to add but that I shall with my last and earnest prayers commend you to the providence of God, hoping that [Pg 116] He will, in such way as He knows best, supply the loss of friends and have you always in His holy keeping, and conduct you in His own appointed time to those happy mansions where all tears will be wiped away from your eyes. If you fix your thoughts here, (as you ought,) you will soon learn to despise the world and all its uncertain goods. Have no thought of me, but if any let it be that I am taken out of a very miserable life, and wish me not out of that happiness everlasting which through the merits of Christ Jesus I hope to be made partaker of in another world. Adieu! Your dutiful son, Thomas Cheyney. Nov. 3rd, 1724.”

The Dean seems to have lived in constant apprehension of death: in April, 1724, he was “labouring under great bodily infirmities which daily call upon me to remember my latter end”; but he lived till 1759, being in that year “of sound mind and not forgetful of my mortality.” Twice in his testamentary papers he commends his soul to God in prayer. “And so I once more commend myself to Thee, O Father of Spirits, professing myself to die, however wickedly and unprofitably I have lived, in the Christian religion as taught in the Church of England, lamenting her divisions and disputes about obscure and unnecessary things, being in peace and charity with all the world.” (1735.) “And first I recommend into Thy hands, Almighty and Everlasting God, my immortal soul, beseeching Thee in all changes to keep it close unto Thyself, and that I may in the day of Judgment find such mercy as I [Pg 117] shall stand in need of through the merits of a blessed Redeemer.” Wills sometimes begin or break out thus in prayer. “Good God direct me in this and all other good things which I shall go about,” cries Phillippa Jones in 1768, and Samuel Gillam in 1787: “O Lord, Thou art great and good, but I am a vile sinner; give me all the mercies I stand in need of for time and for eternity, for the sake of Jesus Christ; and through Him accept all my thankgivings for whatever I have and hope for: To the Father Son and Holy Spirit be eternal glory, Amen.” The Rev. Richard Forster (1728) most humbly commends his soul “into the hand of God the faithful Creator, most earnestly beseeching Him that through the merits and mediation of the merciful Redeemer who purchased it by His blood, being purged and cleansed from all the defilement contracted in this miserable and naughty world, the lusts of the flesh, or the wiles of Satan, and being sanctified by the Holy Ghost, it may be precious in the sight of the glorious Trinity, and be presented without spot in the presence of the Divine Majesty.”

Of peculiar interest, again, are some of the wills of French Protestants in this century. Two may be quoted as differing types, which yet help to illustrate one another as well as the times they represent. The first is that of John Lacombe, tr............